No rest for the wicked
by Checkmate 24601
Summary: The stain of red on white is a mocking reminder of her past sins and her present failing.


**A/N **Just an idea of mine regarding this mysterious female character, whom we know so little of.

The prompt was Lady Macbeth's line "Out damn spot!"

**No rest for the wicked**

_Red on white._

Pale lips trembled _in frustration, in anguish … and yet in one dark, dark corner of her heart, with relief. _Holding the fine silk of the sleeping _yukata_ were fingers of a bird-like fragility, whose sudden clenching turned the knuckles to a bone white, the same shade as the unhealthy pallor of the owner's face.

_Her cycle has started again._

She ought to be ashamed of herself, or more precisely her body's weakness. _And in some ways, she is. _It is her duty as a wife to bear a child for her husband, and the common duty of every noblewoman _– "She has not one drop of blue blood within her!" "Scheming filthy chit, how_ _did you bewitch Byakuya-sama so that he accepted a _peasant _into our family?" – _takes on greater importance, becomes a greater burden, when her husband is the head of one of the Four Major Clans within Soul Society.

Hisana knew nothing about such politics or deadly intrigue of clan rivalry when that handsome man in black _shihakusho_ knocked down the two Inuzuri thugs who were trying to rape her. She had felt so ashamed and embarrassed at her state of undress, with the clear feeling of inadequacy at the chasm spanning his higher status and her lowly one. _She had at least some common sense to note his higher rank. _She simply hadn't expected the developments that encounter would bring to her life.

For him to have spoken so gently and kindly to her as though she were a woman worthy of such respect and polite address. For him, over the course of a month and a half, to come back and visit her time and time again.

When Kuchiki Byakuya proposed to her, Hisana had accepted with little hesitation. That too is a shameful act. _It was not Love which propelled her to answer in the affirmative; it was Desperation. _

The poverty and wretchedness of her circumstances, of her surroundings wore down on her spirits and broke her body. By the time of his proposal _how Byakuya had looked so hopeful and unsure of himself for the first time since she knew him, and the _wrongness _of such emotions in his countenance_, Hisana had learned enough about the gentle stranger to know that he was wealthy, had means to provide for her wretched life ten times over than she could ever hope to accomplish in this lifetime. _And Rukia! Poor Rukia, her little sister, whom she had so selfishly abandoned because she couldn't scrape enough food to feed the both of them. _

"_Shameful!" "Such a disgrace to our family Name!" "Manipulative slut!"_

She didn't deserve any of the gifts that Byakuya-sama bestowed upon her. The silks, the food, jewellery of such multitude and beauty that she could not bear to look at them without a sob roughly catching her throat, let alone wear them. _Better women – those of refined upbringing, with soft, delicate hands and knowledge of embroidery – deserved to stand in her place, _ought to stand in her place.

However, Irony played its finest trump card yet by sweeping a commoner in to usurp them all, regardless of their aristocratic backgrounds.

Nevertheless, Hisana believes the Gods would torment, _rightfully punish_, her still. And this is her Barrenness.

The emptiness of her womb, which for the past two years, had never swelled with Child no matter the frequent _nightly _visits she made to Byakuya-sama's room. Her narrow, almost bony, hips were not the ideal for a successful birth, let alone bearing a son to carry on her husband's name. _And the Clan elders frequently reminded her of it, clucking their tongues or berating her behind painted fans that _it was her duty _to bear a son for Byakuya-sama. The narrowing of their eyes at her thin, petite frame spoke of more untold censures and painful reproaches which she cannot fend off nor defend herself against. _

And one dreadful, ungrateful, selfish part of Hisana resented her husband for this situation. He, who brought her, like a lamb to the slaughter, despite his love, despite his wonderful, good intentions, into this den of wolves!

Then, raven hair would fall over tired eyes, ashamed at herself, and once more weep silently into those bloodied silks.

By abandoning Rukia, she committed a secret, shameful sin of such magnitude that the Gods would not hear of her teary pleadings not to see her blood on white undergarments. More horrifically, Hisana suspects that it is her wariness and dislike of children which cements her infertility. The sight of her dead younger siblings, who were pushed wailing and screaming into this unforgiving World by her mother who had no courage and no means to defend herself against the machinations of an alcoholic husband, continues to chill Hisana to the core at night. _Small fingers opening and clutching at air, dry cries and croaks for scraps of food that were not forthcoming,_ are hateful,persistent, frightening memories.

Another child…simply meant another mouth to feed, _an unwanted Burden. _

And despite her silent prayer for forgiveness as she laid her baby sister's head against the thatch of a hut, Hisana never once looked back as she fled onwards and away.

_Yes, this was the rightful Punishment for her – ungrateful, selfish, Desperate Hisana. _

So after the ripples in the basin water from salty droplets ceased, thin fingers took up that age-old routine of washing the silk. Those hands did not stop scrubbing, not even when fingers were chafed raw and the crimson was leeched out of the fine material, bleeding away into the water. 

**A/N **Would love to hear your feedback! I am always in awe at authors who can write byakuya x hisana fanfiction so well.


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